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About Me

Welcome!
To me, there is nothing more precious than our family.
We are all connected in some way, like the branches of a tree. This site explores those branches, sharing family stories and information - both known and yet to be discovered - so we can meet the people behind the names and gain insights into our own lives. If you have questions or wish to share your own memories or photo about a family on this site, please leave a comment, or contact me.

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Benita (McGinnis) McCormick, or "Aunt Detty," as she was known to our family, kept a scrapbook of her life and memories. She began it in the early 1970s and added to it from time to time over the years. On this page, one of the earliest from her album, she attached a photograph of her parents, Thomas and Mary Jane (Gaffney) McGinnis. They were known to all simply as Tom and Janie.

Scrapbook page from Benita (McGinnis) McCormick's album,written by her at age 82 in 1972, San Mateo, California

Aunt Detty writes here of her father, Tom:

My father was one of the aforesaid young men working for the N.P.R.R. [Nickel Plate Railroad] in the early days of that road. The story was that as he passed the open dining room window of the Gaffney House to register for a room, he looked up, saw mother and fell madly in love. When he registered my Aunt Margaret who was at the desk, observed, "You are carrying the biggest lunch pail I have ever seen in my life."

"It is?" laughed my father, "I guess it's true. But I've just seen the girl I want to fill it for me - she's at the window at the back of the hour ironing!"

By the healthy look of the bridegroom in this picture, it would appear that somebody kept his lunchpail pretty well packed. Wouldn't you say? Of course, in a family boasting four daughters, somebody was usually busy filling lunchpails for hunger men in the sunny old kitchen those days.

The only illness I can recall in my father's life was his last. He was an unusually athletic, healthy man, with the most happy and genial disposition I have ever known and just about the most popular. I loved him very much and often feel him near me. A good father is a great blessing.

On the same page, she also remembers her mother, Janie:

My mother was a clever fashion designer, never using a pattern - simply held a paper up to her subject and cut to suit the figure before her.

She made the dress she is wearing in this photo. It was from satin and beautifully draped, as you may see. Her hat was made by her sister Elizabeth (Aunt Lyle to us children), who was as clever with hats as my mother was with gowns.

The parasol my mother is carrying was brown silk with a golden brown bone handle. I recall admiring it. Sometimes she would let me hold it. I remember hazily that many years later I glimpsed it wrapped in tissue in an old trunk in our attic. But it was then beginning to split, as taffeta will in time.

My mother was aged 26 when this picture was taken. Which makes her birthday in 1858 (December 2). She died in 1940, at the age of 82 years old (my present age in 1972). Some women become morose in old age, but my mother was alert, interested in people and events to the very last - As I write I keep saying, "Thank you, God, for having given us such wonderful parents!"

Aunt Detty notes that her parents' portrait was of "the newlyweds in Cl. O (Cleveland, Ohio), where they spent their honeymoon."

However, after comparing the above photo with the engagement portraits they had made before, Tom looks a bit older and considerably stockier than he appeared in his original photograph, no matter how well Janie may have packed his lunch pail.

Janie McGinnis (the former Mary Jane Gaffney) also appears a bit older here. Was this taken in 1884 or sometime later, perhaps during a later trip to Cleveland? Although the cabinet card style photograph shows that they were in Cleveland wearing their wedding clothes, I would love to know why and when they were there. Did they return to Cleveland after honeymooning there, maybe for an anniversary or other special occasion?

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

(1858 - 1940)The photograph below comes from a page from the scrapbook of my great-aunt, Benita (McGinnis) McCormick, in honor of her parents, Thomas McGinnis and Mary Jane Gaffney. They were married on May 19, 1884, in Conneaut, Ohio. According to Benita, this photograph was taken on their honeymoon in Cleveland, Ohio.

Thomas Eugene and Mary Jane (Gaffney)McGinnis, Cleveland, Ohio. Could this photograph have been taken sometime after their 1884 marriage?

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Reverse side of love token shows it is a Seated Liberty quarter dated 1854.

Good things come in small packages.Some years ago, my second cousin, Benita Jane (McCormick) Olson, gave me a small brooch that had belonged to my great-grandmother, Mary Jane (Gaffney) McGinnis. The brooch had been made from an old coin that was planed on one side, where someone had etched the letter "M" and bordered it with an embellishment of double linked curves. On the reverse, they had soldered a hinge, through which they had threaded a gold nail that tucked under a C-shaped catch.

Neither of us had ever seen anything like it before, and our questions were many. Who made it, and why? Did the "M" stand for Mary Jane's name? Did it stand for "Mother"? Had it been a gift from one of her four children? Or did it stand for her married name, McGinnis, and did it come from her husband, Tom?

As it turns out, the brooches such as this one were quite popular in the 1800s. They were called "love tokens."Although love tokens can take many forms and date back to Roman times, the practice of engraving a symbol of one's love began in Wales in the 15th century, when young men carved intricate designs on spoons as tokens of their love and affection for their intended. The tradition expanded to include coins in 17th century England and reached the height of their popularity in the United States during the Civil War. Sailors also made them for their sweethearts as a promise of their return.Until the early 20th century, all were made by hand. The practice continued through World War I, when soldiers made them for their mothers and girlfriends, sometimes by hand, but mostly with machinery.Love tokens were often substituted for engagement rings, understandably so as a young lady would likely wear the brooch near her heart. The coins either had holes punched through the top to wear on a chain, or they had hinges attached with thin bent nails to wear as a brooch. Typically, they bore the initial of the beloved, but they also could be quite ornate. Some love tokens were engraved with names, messages or symbols and other embellishments. Most love tokens were made from Seated Liberty dimes or nickels. The dimes, in particular, were the easiest to plane and engrave because of the softness of the silver. The dimes and nickels were the most popular denominations to use, as they were less costly than quarters and dollars. Still, these factors could not diminish the love shared by the giver and the recipient of such a heartfelt gift.

Mary Jane GaffneyEngagement portrait, about 1885Conneaut, Ohio

So who gave our Mary Jane her love token, and why? The more expensive denomination of the Seated Liberty quarter suggests that it might have been more affordable for a young man to give his beloved than as a gift from a boy or girl for their mother. The year under the hinge is 1854; could that be of any significance? It would be less likely for one of the children to possess a coin from that date. Could 1854 have alluded to Thomas McGinnis' year of birth? I have been unable to find his birth certificate. His death certificate notes he was born in 1855. Various census records put his birth between 1855 and 1858, so it is hard to tell for sure.

Thomas McGinnis,Engagement portrait, about 1855Conneaut, Ohio

Thomas had run away to sea as a boy, so he could have learned how to carve love tokens as a sailor. If in fact he was the giver, as I suspect, the "M" could have stood for Mary Jane. The romantic in me thinks it also could have stood for McGinnis, which would become Mary Jane's new last name - and in a single initial would have signified both of them coming together as one.

I treasure this lovely and very sentimental brooch. It is something both of my great-grandparents touched lovingly. I marvel that something so small has endured through four generations - from Mary Jane to her daughter, Benita, to her granddaughter, Jane, and now to me. It symbolizes so much love between husband and wife, mother and child, and beyond. I am very grateful to Jane for her special gift, and I look forward to passing it on to my own daughter, Erin, one day.I wear Mary Jane's brooch on special occasions, Mother's Day being one of them. I will wear it today, in honor of her marriage to Thomas on this day, May 19th, some 128 years ago. I also will wear it tomorrow to remember my dear cousin Jane Olson, on her birthday.As small packages go, this is the best kind: the gift that keeps on giving.

When my great-aunt, Benita
"Detty" McCormick reached the "young" age of
92, she created a scrapbook of her life. She devoted the first pages of
her scrapbook to her parents and grandparents, Thomas Eugene and Mary McGinnis;
and John Patrick and Bridget Gaffney.

One of those pages
contained a photograph (below) of the Gaffney House in Conneaut, Ashtabula
County, Ohio. Located at 58 Mill Street, it was also known to some as the
"Conneaut House." The house belonged to Mary Jane's own parents, John
Francis "Jeff" and Bridget (Quinn) Gaffney.

John and Bridget were
Irish potato famine immigrants to America. Both were from County Roscommon- he from Drumbrick and she from Boyle. Did they know each other before
crossing the Atlantic? It's hard to say, but the towns are about five miles
apart, so it is possible. It appears, though, that they married in
America.

John and Bridget lived
for a time in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where Mary Jane, their eldest child, was
born and baptized in 1858. They arrived in Conneaut sometime between 1858
and the spring of 1860, when their second daughter, Margaret, was born.

The United States 1860
Census indicates that John was a "peddler" who owned property in Conneaut valued
at $300. The equivalent today would be over $8,000, an impressive amount of
money for that era. Aunt Detty believed he had been a traveling linen
salesman, but it seems plausible that he would have sold other
textiles as well, such as cotton. The demand for cotton was far greater than for
linen at this time, due to shortages of flax (needed to make linen) and the
rising popularity of cotton as a less expensive and more versatile material.
The demand increased dramatically with the advent of the Civil War and
the need for cotton to make soldier's uniforms and medical supplies.
These factors must have contributed a decent income to the Gaffney family
and made it possible for John and Bridget to afford such a large home as the
Gaffney House.

The house apparently
was big enough to house John and Bridget's growing family - they would have 10
children in all - plus additional rooms to rent to the young men who worked on
the nearby Nickel Plate Railroad.

The Gaffney House, famous Conneaut, Ohio landmark
patronized especially by Nickle (sic) Plate railroad men. About 1880 the
hotel was the home of more than 30 unmarried young men under the age of 27
years. + The cross on the addition indicates the window to the "Priest's
Room" built by my grandfather John Francis Gaffney to accommodate the
circuit priest who came when he could to minister to the growing Irish-American
population.

John and Bridget had no idea that one of those
young men would become more than just a "renter" to them in the years
to come.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

From left to right: Phillip and Benita McCormick with their tour guide, 1962, Piraeus, Greece.

One of the reasons my family moved to California in 1967 was to be closer to my great-aunt and great-uncle, Benita (McGinnis) and Phillip McCormick. At that time, they were in their late 70s.

We called them Aunt Detty and Unk Pill. I don't remember how Uncle Phil got his nickname, but I think my aunt's nickname originated when one or more of her siblings could not say "Benita" when they were young children. "Detty" must have been as close as they could get. The name stuck.

Aunt Detty and my maternal grandmother, Alice (McGinnis) Schiavon, were sisters. My grandmother having died in 1963, Aunt Detty was my mother's closest relative in California. She and Unk Pill lived about a 30 minute drive from us at Woodlake, a large apartment complex at 820 Delaware Street in San Mateo.

Our family usually visited them on Sunday afternoons. As youngsters, my sisters and I loved ringing the doorbell by their apartment number on the building directory. Aunt Detty's warm "Hello, there!" would greet us through the speaker, followed by a buzzer that automatically unlocked the door to let us enter the building. This seemed very sophisticated to us. We would pile into the wood-paneled elevator for the ride to the third floor.

My sisters and I often raced each other to see who could get to Aunt Detty's apartment first. Our parents would remind us to not run round the corner and down the long hallway, but it was hard to resist. There she was at the door, arms outstretched, dressed in her best clothes as if the most important people in the world were coming to visit.

Uncle Phil would be waiting inside. Looking debonair in his tweed golf cap and herringbone blazer, he was ready to take us back downstairs to the swimming pool or for a walk around the large complex if we were too giddy, so my aunt and my parents could talk.

Aunt Detty was a writer, artist, and entrepreneur all her life. When she was in her 90s, she created a scrapbook of her life's memories, using an old Christmas card sample book. The page below contains her introduction to the "skeleton" of her life.

Thursday, May 09, 2013

Gilbert Cayetano Huesca (1915 - 2009)(This is the last of a three part series. To read Part 1, click here. To read Part 2, click here.)

My father and me on my wedding day, just before leaving for the church. Santa Clara, California, 1984.

A few months before my father died, we had an interesting conversation about trust. I remarked that we were polar opposites in that he was slow to trust new people and situations, while I might have been too ready to trust them right away. I wished he could sometimes be more optimistic and less skeptical.Surprisingly, he agreed with me and added that he wished he could have been that way, too. As far as I knew, he had never said this before. I asked him if something had happened in his life that had influenced him to think this way. He briefly pondered my question. "I want you to understand," he began, "that sometimes in this life, you have to protect yourself."Protect yourself. How many times had he said this before? As my three younger sisters and I grew up and went out on our own in the world, my father often reminded us to be wary of what we said and did. In his view, we never knew who might be watching or testing us. He did not want anyone or anything to take advantage of us. I took it as wanting us to look over our shoulders all the time and thought it was very pessimistic. Though his advice about thinking ahead made sense, it seemed as though my father's outlook was based on apprehension and pessimism. I struggled to understand and told myself that for all his wonderful qualities, he would never change in this regard.

Protect yourself. My father lived through traumatic times, but he saw no reason to wear these on his sleeve. He witnessed and was the subject of man's inhumanity to man. These were major life events over which he had no control or could not have predicted, yet they occurred in life's most mundane settings. Being skeptical and cautious - and encouraging his children to do the same - were ways my father thought would protect himself and us from ever being threatened or betrayed again. He had formed a protective shell and would not let anything or anyone penetrate it again.Protect yourself. Now that my children are grown and are making their way in the world, I find myself sometimes wanting to protect them, much as my father tried to protect me. I have to stop myself from telling them what to do and how to do it. They will make and learn from their own mistakes, as we all do.In the months that followed our conversation on trust, my father's prostate cancer metastasized and began taking ruthless advantage of his body. It wracked him with pain, forcing him to go from being fiercely independent to become more dependent than ever on others for his daily needs. It was heartbreaking. He had protected his family all his life, and now we were powerless to protect him.But a strange thing happened. When things seemed at their worst, a new light seemed to go on inside my father. He became more hopeful, trusting, and optimistic. He greeted everyone with joy and kindness and patience, from his doctors to his hospice caregiver to the man who delivered his medical equipment. No longer did he see the need to be guarded around strangers. Now he regarded them differently that he would have before. He trusted and respected them, even as it became physically harder to interact with them. The cancer had betrayed his body, but it had not betrayed his soul.He was hopeful, almost to the end, that he could defeat the cancer. When it became clear that this would not be, his hopefulness was transformed to peaceful acceptance. My precious father, ever amazing, found grace in giving up the control he had exercised all his life and accepted his new path to the inevitable that awaits us all.I understand now. Whether or not we understand the reasons for what people do, it is important to accept them for the way they are. My father's life and attitude were influenced by an era of politics and culture, among other things, that converged to shape him into the man that he became. But there were also other forces at work: the unique combination of values of love, faith, family, honor, respect, discipline, and strength that he learned from his parents in the context of his unique life. We were more alike than we were different. He influenced me to become the person I am today and shared life's lessons from his heart. He was a loving and devoted father and the best parent anyone could aspire to be. I will always be grateful for all the time we spent together and the closeness that we shared. I had the perfect father. I love him exactly as he was and would not want him to be any other way.

I used to wonder why my father was so reserved and circumspect. He was not spontaneous like my mother. He was a kind and loving person who went out of his way to help his family and friends. He had tremendous integrity and honor, and he enjoyed the respect of others in his personal and professional life.While he hoped for the best, he always prepared himself for the reasonable worst. He chose his words and planned his actions in his life as deliberately as if they were moves in the chess games he loved so much. Even when the unexpected caught him off guard, his response was measured, cautious, and thoughtful.

Our family was living in Mexico City in 1966, having moved from Chicago to be near relatives. My parents rented a house next to my father's sister and her family, at 38-A Altamirano Street in the San Rafael neighborhood. Our other neighbor was Mr. Torres, an elderly retired professor who did not like Americans. Not long after we moved in, he denounced my father to the Federal Security Directorate, known informally as the Mexican "secret police." The "crime" was speaking English in our home.

At that time speaking a language other than Spanish at home could be grounds for suspicious or subversive activity against the then-authoritarian state. During the 1960s and 70s the Mexican government was at odds with left-wing and guerrilla groups in what was called the Dirty War. The Mexican secret police were known for conducting surveillance on persons they deemed "suspicious" for any number of vague reasons. Hundreds of people were taken into custody during this period. Many were tortured; some "disappeared" and were never seen again. The secret police's existence was as well known as their power was notably feared.

When my father came home from work one day, he was met by two of these plainclothes policemen and whisked away for questioning. Before leaving, they let him quickly kiss my mother (Joan Schiavon Huesca) goodbye. In what must have been a desperate whisper, he urged her to call his best friend and respected attorney, Licenciado Ocampo Alonso.

Mr. Ocampo Alonso told my mother not to panic. He reassured her that he would contact the American embassy and go down at once to the secret police headquarters to negotiate a release. He was optimistic that my father's status as a naturalized American citizen would aid in his release but gave no guarantees. He would have to move quickly. Meanwhile, to be safe, he advised my mother to pack a suitcase and be ready to leave the country right away with my sisters and me in case my father was not home in four hours. After that window of time, the chances of his returning were slim.

My mother said later that the wait felt like an eternity. I do not remember if anyone came over to be with her during that time, but how she made it still astounds me. I do not know whether my little sisters were aware of the crisis at hand, but I remember asking my mother why she was packing a suitcase. She sat me down and explained what had happened as calmly as she could. She knew she could count on me to be mature, to be brave and to trust that God would bring my father back.I was only 11 years old then, but I was the oldest child. I knew my mother was counting on me, but I felt scared, confused, and helpless. Fighting back tears, I ran up the two flights of stairs to our rooftop patio and looked across the courtyard adjoining our two houses into Mr. Torres' study.It was dusk. The old man sat at his desk under a stark shadeless light bulb, folding and cutting out one string of paper dolls after another. I stared at him in disgust and disbelief. How he could do such a mindless thing without a care in the world, while my daddy was being interrogated somewhere and we might never see him again? Even at my young age I was sure the man must have been crazy.

My father's attorney obtained his release that evening. When he walked through our front door, my mother, who had stayed strong for us all evening, burst into tears. My father tried to hold back his emotion, too, but it was no use. He cried as he threw his arms around her and us and held on tightly. We later learned that he had not been charged with any wrongdoing. I am sure he filled my mother in on the details, but as far as I know, he never talked about it beyond that and tried to forget those hours of fear and dread.It must be terrifying to be in such jeopardy and have no control over your outcome, to not know whether you would ever see your loved ones again or you would even make it out alive. Though I clearly remember being frightened for my father and for our family, I cannot even begin to imagine all the thoughts that must have gone through his head. Only now I see that this experience, coupled with his personal witness to religious persecution in the 1930s, were defining moments in my father's life. They must have been why he lived with a sense of uncertainty and reserve.

Next: Thankful Thursday: Life's Lessons, Part 3 - The Forces that Shape Us

Sunday, May 05, 2013

(Part One of a three part series. To read Part 2, please click here. To read part 3, please click here)

No matter how close you are to someone, the bits and pieces you know about them only scratch the surface of who they are. It's the voids - the spaces between the things they do and the questions you have about the whys - that can fill in the blanks to help you understand what happened in the unknown moments that affected the rest of their life.

Several years ago, one of those voids surfaced when my father reacted emotionally to a local play we attended. The play, "Viva Cristo Rey," was about the martyrdom of a Mexican Jesuit priest, Blessed Miguel Pro, in early 20th century Mexico. My father, who was 91 at the time, sat very still through the play, straining to hear every word and tightly pursing his lips from time to time. I sensed a certain tension in him and squeezed his hand. He squeezed mine back, his eyes never leaving the stage. When the play ended, we lined up in the lobby to meet the cast. As my father approached the young actor who had portrayed Father Miguel Pro, he was trembling. "All of these things are true," he began, his eyes welling with tears. "I did not see this priest, but I was a witness to that same inhumanity in [the state of] Chiapas."

The actors and audience members around us leaned in as he recounted his story as clearly as if it had just occurred, rather than 72 years earlier. "Unbelievable cruelty, but it did happen in Mexico. I was there. I saw it with my own eyes."

The cruelty he referred to was religious persecution and anti-clericalism in Mexico. Although both had roots in the mid-19th century, they reached a peak when the Constitution of 1917 removed churches' legal status and essentially outlawed religious practice. Among other things, the articles of the constitution made public worship a crime. They outlawed religious orders, religious education, religious organizations, and publications that dealt with public policy. They prohibited priests from performing their ministry and removed their rights to vote or hold office. They invalidated church marriages, allowed the government to seize church property, and banned clergy and religious from wearing religious garb outside of church. Under the constitution, anyone violating these restrictions forfeited his or her right to a trial. During the 1920s, President Plutarco Elias Calles began enforcing these articles, arresting and making examples of those who dared challenge the law.

As a result of the new laws, people could not speak publicly about God or faith. They could not voice dissent for fear of being arrested or worse, executed. The Mexican bishops made a painful decision to close all the churches across the country to protect their people and their clergy. Couples who wanted to be married in the church had to marry twice - once in a civil ceremony and again by a priest. My father's sister, María de la Luz Huesca, and her husband were married in a quiet ceremony at home by their parish priest in Veracruz State, for this reason. People practiced their religion much like the Christians of Roman times, gathering quietly in homes for clandestine catechism, Masses, baptisms and rosaries. Families created small devotional altars with religious statues and images, photographs of loved ones, and votive candles for private prayer.

Blessed Miguel Pro, S.J., one of the martyrs of the Cristero rebellion against religious persecution in Mexico

Many clerics went into exile. One of those was the young seminarian Miguel Pro, whose superior sent him and other seminarians to continue their priestly formation in Los Gatos, California, not far from my home. After going to Belgium to be ordained, Father Pro returned to Mexico, where he openly supported the growing Cristero(followers of Christ) rebellion against Calles' violent religious oppression.

In 1927, Father Pro was arrested on a trumped-up charge of conspiracy to kill ex-president Álvaro Obregón. President Calles ordered him executed by firing squad. His martyrdom and final words, "Viva Cristo Rey," (Long Live Christ the King), the motto of the Cristeros, renewed and energized the rebellion, mobilizing 40,000 - 50,000 clergy, nuns, and ordinary men, women, and children to fight for religious freedom. The Cristero War officially ended in 1929, but the government continued arresting clerics and persecuting people through the 1930s. After that, though public worship was still illegal, officials typically looked the other way. In 1988, Pope John Paul II began the canonization process to elevate Father Miguel Pro to sainthood, and four years later President Carlos Salinas de Gortari's government lifted most, though not all, of the anti-religious restrictions.

I never heard about the Cristero War while I was in school in mid-1960s Mexico. This was not unusual; many others who were born long after the persecution did not know of it, either. It simply was kept out of school textbooks and was not discussed in classes. Many of the people who lived through that era did not discuss it much, if at all, with the younger generations. As an adult, I gradually became aware of this dark chapter of oppression in Mexico's history. Perhaps because it was not mentioned much, I did not gave serious thought to how it affected my father and his family. It was not until the evening of the play that this sad era of Mexico's history hit home as my father's story, which I had heard before, finally took on the gravity it deserved.

Surrounded by the actors and others in the theater lobby, my father recounted that when he was 19 years old he traveled for his family's business to Tuxtla Gutiérrez, capital of Chiapas. It was 1934, a year that turned out to be one of the worst in the government's brutal persecution of the church, even though the Cristero War had officially ended five years earlier.

My father had gone to the zócalo, or town square, when he saw a large band of soldiers gathered there. Their commander grabbed a megaphone and in a thundering voice ordered the teachers and religious of the town to turn in all their books, crucifixes, and religious images and articles to the square that evening to be destroyed.The square, once noisy and vibrant minutes, was now stilled by the commander's harsh orders, and people retreated to their homes in silence. My father left for his hotel, horrified and angry.

At the appointed hour, he returned to the square to see for himself what would happen. His initial curiosity and fearlessness morphed into an overwhelming sense of helplessness as scores of fearful townspeople arrived and were forced at gunpoint to throw their things onto a large bonfire. Many sobbed as they watched their treasured and sacred belongings go up in the choking black smoke.My father would not tell us that night whether anyone fought back or lost their lives on that fateful day. All he would say was that resistance equalled death, either on the spot or at a later time by firing squad. Overcome with emotion, he left it at that, and we left the theater and went home.The vivid barbarity of that episode left a deep scar on many, including the young witness who would someday become my father. The military continued to bully and terrorize the Mexican people for nearly another five years. Many people worked around the rules, finding ways to exercise their faith quietly. Others chose to fight back, either as soldiers or by boldly practicing their faith in public, tempting further persecution and even death. They showed that while it is possible to lose everything you have, including your right to practice what you believe, nothing - and no one - can take away what is in your mind, in your heart, in your soul.There are many types of formative experiences in life. Most of us would not hope to view persecution as one of them. It's hard to comprehend how terrible it must have been if you've never felt that kind of oppression and seen the effects it has on people. There is a Spanish proverb that says that man proposes and God disposes. The Mexican people suffered immeasurably for their faith, but in the end it was their faith that saved them during the persecution, giving them hope and strength and solace. As I drove my father home that night, I couldn't help but wonder about the void in the story - the part that was too painful for him to share. I never did find out what it was. At the time, I was more concerned with the pain the play had resurrected in him that night. It took another recollection several years later, my own this time, to understand the toll that the experience had taken on his life.